Annotated 20-9
This scene is remarkable for how unlike the rest of the series it is.
We didn’t do steamy content in Guilded Age very much, objectively speaking or compared to some of my other projects. Frigg (with Best, E-Merl, and others) has the most developed sex scenes and sex-related scenes of the bunch, but they’re usually more comically blunt than arousing. We gave Byron and Syr’Nj just enough attention that readers knew their sex life was satisfying… and along with this scene here and one later echo of it, that was about it. Bandit, arguably the most conventionally attractive of the lot, doesn’t get near the subject; E-Merl and Rachel, for all their obvious hormonal energy, don’t get past kissing in fact or in any on-panel dream sequences. Gravedust is a literal monk. Villains? Incidental characters? Pretty much nada. Harky and Gondolessa held hands on-panel, all of once.
Partly that’s because what’s hot can be as elusive a topic as what’s funny, and it was one on which Phil and I were less likely to agree. Partly it’s because I think sexy stuff comes more naturally to some of my other artist partners, so I could play with the subject elsewhere (see: Gisele Lagace). But I think fantasy that tries too hard to be sexy is often cliched fantasy, hitting the very tropes we were looking to avoid, from chainmail bikinis on down to “two innocent peasants get up to a bit o’ fun in the back woods, and then suddenly THEY’RE SLAUGHTERED BY A RAVENOUS MONSTER!”
Man I hate that trope, leave those peasants to their woodsy luvvin, they got hard enough lives without some monster (or writer) making snatching a bit of happy with someone into a death sentence. I always feel bad for the poor folks.
The other thing I hate, is when the heroes get to “The Ancient (library, Palace, vault, city, etc.) of a lost Age” and through their actions the place just gets fukkin wrecked. It always makes me mad, like so much knowledge was there and you jokers ended up lighting the place on fire. I get why it happens, but it’s still really annoying.
Also, it’s nice that sex in this story is mainly just an opportunity to show how the characters feel for each other. I’ve got no problem with smut, but it does tend to get used as something to “spice” up fantasy and sci-fi, or to make it more gritty and “real”, which almost always means shocking and kind of fucked up, so the fact that it’s peppered in sparingly and to specific purpose here is nice.
Scip’s almost-barely-smile here is excellent. Anything more wouldn’t have been Scip.
Although I just noticed that he’s being indecisive about whether to put his arm above or below his pillow.
Still, though, it’s more than offset by details like her toe stroking his foot in panel 3. I’m left thinking if she could merge her soul with this man, in this moment, she wouldn’t hesitate.
I’m surprised his “bark” smells like anything other than cigar smoke.
My bet is that his cigar never left his mouth the entire time.
It’s like that cigarette Keith Richards was born with.
It’s a very sensual and tasteful inner monologue.
And it can easily be ruined by imagining it being read by Gilbert Gottfried.
You underestimate the erotic nature of Gilbert’s sensuous voice. In all seriousness, I’ve heard him read porn so often I am no longer even phased by it.
So, wait, is this ERP with S’rinj, or like, what is happening in the “real world”?
Fr’nj is an NPC, as Scip’s Sepia player mentions (self-deprecatingly) when they actually make an appearance later on.
So, if this scene has a Sepia counterpart, it’s presumably just Scip’s player writing erotic/romantic fic. (Or else Realms of Arkherra has the sort of romantic sideplots the usually only exist in single-player or tabletop RPGs. But that doesn’t really fit with the way Fr’s NPCness is confirmed.)
Ah but remember that the Tubers have a magical effect on Arkherra and enhance everything around them somehow. In addition Arkherra has some sort of system where when you are not logged in your character becomes an NPC (as far as my memory goes). This is how many of the sepia characters and their game characters are doing things simultaneously later.